Yale Hosts Ivy Classic

Feb 26, 2009

Feb. 26, 2009

NEW HAVEN, Conn. - This Saturday, Cornell, Brown, and Penn will travel to New Haven for the Ivy Classic. Yale placed second last year, while Alina Liao won the all-around, beam, and floor. Several other Bulldogs had top-three performances.

Cornell is the reigning team champion. The Big Red are in good shape to defend their title, coming off of a second place finish at Towson's Shelli Calloway Invitational with a 190.650. Penn competed in the same meet last, finishing third with a 188.325. They were the Ivy Classic champions in 2007. Brown competed against a trio of nationally ranked teams last weekend in Oklahoma, scoring a 185.950. The Bulldogs are coming off of a dual meet with SCSU, where they finished with a 164.025 due to a lack of a full line-up.

In the competition, each team is allowed to have six gymnasts compete on each event. Only five of those scores count towards the final score, so the lowest can be dropped. However in the past two weekends, Yale has had difficulties even putting up five routines on each event.

Head coach Barbara Tonry is still unsure of her line-ups, citing last minute illnesses and injuries that the team has been hampered with recently.

"We'll just have to wait until Saturday to see who's healthy and can compete," she said.

The Bulldogs will rely heavily on Liao in the all-around, where she scored a career high 38.75 last weekend. Allison Mak has also been competing all four events and is a particularly strong force on the beam. Sarah Hughes has competed all-around lately as well, and Yale depends on her floor score. Although plagued with various injuries all season, Brigitte Kivisto is capable of competing every event and is expected to contribute at least one routine to the team score. Sherry Yang will contribute on vault, beam, and floor. The rest of the bar line-up is in the hands of a pair of freshmen, Claude de Jocas and Margaret Greenberg. Micaline Tomeo will open up the meet on the vault.